


Tyger, Tyger

by Turnandfacethepaige



Series: Songs of innocence and other stories of heartbreak. [1]
Category: Doctor Strange (2016)
Genre: College AU, Gen, Graphic description of poetry, Hopefully comedy, It's hopefully comedy because I like to think my writing is funny but it turns out to not be., Magic, Rating May Change, Supervillain AU, William Blake - Freeform, superhero au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-03
Updated: 2018-04-24
Packaged: 2018-10-27 15:40:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 14,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10811961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Turnandfacethepaige/pseuds/Turnandfacethepaige
Summary: Most of the time, when told to gain more credits to be able to pass their course, students attmpt to join a club, take another leson, or even study harder. Karl Mordo, on the other hand, takes the rational step of becoming a supervillain and working for his professor in the eternal battle of good and evil (whatever that means) in the hopes of graduating.He was expecting monsters and demons and other hideous creatures. He wasn't expecting a hero that was both cute and annoyingly persistent in trying to make Mordo "see the light" and switch to the Good Side. He also wasn't expecting a bunch of murderous psychopaths to descend onto the city, but to be fair, that was going to come at some point or another.So, armed with some fancy boots, a posh costume and all the knowledge a freshamn can have of English literature, Mordo sets out to try and save a city, one stanza at a time.





	1. Burning Bright

**Author's Note:**

> Small first chapter, but I promise there will be more later.  
> Steal my writing and I'll hit you with a fish on a bus.

There was a soft flash of light in the sky.

Not that anybody noticed it. Not that anybody would have cared had they been able to see it. The light was so soft and so quick that nobody but those who knew what it represented would have spotted it.

The light flickered again, brighter, this time, stronger, faster. A little flash in the night.

It was a quiet night the night it all began, the traffic all but non-existent over the highway, and the lights in the skyscrapers and blocks of flats all but extinguished. The trains had been sent out and received back at the station. The soft hum that accompanies a city in the day had evaporated into the gentle night, taken away by the stars. Nobody was awake to see the new visitor to this world.

Except one.

He was standing in the expanse of green land that was below the sky, tired, stinging eyes strained to the star-lepered sky, every flicker catching his pupils, every little dash of star in the dark making him jerk his face towards the source. He had been there for a very, very long time, and he had been waiting for this moment for even longer.

Beside him, a rucksack crammed with jars and jars of a dark, thick liquid. There were notebooks, some stuffed in the bag, some left on the grass near him, opened up to the sky with pages upon pages of curled, jutting letters in a language that looked like it had come from something as old as the galaxies and just as indecipherable, spattered with drawings of elipsed moons and fading suns, diagrams of solar orbits and lunar tics.

The light glashed in the sky, a little quicker, a little faster, and the man stood up, jumping to attention, a notebook and a pen in his hand. The pen was poised over what appeared to be a map, a sprawling mass of co-ordinates and lines, ready to mark down a position.

The light flashed again. The pen was poised over what appeared to be a map, a sprawling mass of co-ordinates and lines, ready to mark down a positon.

The light flashed again. The pen was swift and elegant, crossing out an X on the graph waiting for it, next to the hundreds of others that had already been marked down.

And that was it, his job done for the night. He'd have to come out for the next few nights, just to make sure the light was making the progress it was predicted to do, but apart from that, his job here was done. He didn't have to worry about this until the next new cycle. He closed the notebook, slotted it into his backpack, zipped it up, getting ready to go home, walking through the dark, damp streets of the night. 

Above him, the light flashed again. Once. Twice. A third time.

Something new was coming through the dark.


	2. Symmetry

The love story started one winter, when the snow was pummelling the windows and beating the raw branch and trunks of the trees icy thing. A yew had been felled three days prior, and lay as dull as a course on the back alley behind the house.

The real love story had occurred almost twenty years prior, in France, where these sort of romances tended to happen; rooted in faded candlelight, painted cupids and wine that when I drunk made your eyes glitter like the moon in your face. His mother had been a dance student, flirting across dance studios in a skirt in a way that made the gods knees tremble, skin ebony in candlelight and onyx under the moon, and French. His father was the son of a diplomat at the embassy in France, with a voice like bass, and Italian oozing from his fingertips in a way that the Italians had mastered all those years ago.

They'd met outside, darting the cobbled streets amongst the cold winds of winter, and married amongst French blossoms. He was first born, and only born. His mother gave up on Sugar Plum dreams and instead focused on pushing those dreams onto children in slithering buns and failed tutus. They found an old house within Paris to raise their son, crammed full of as much art as they could. They spoke to him in French and Italian, with some English chucked in when convenient.

This would prove to be a terrible mistake, one snow day. Bored by snow, he'd gone on a walkabout amongst the house, coming across the stash of books in the downstairs library.

Dull amongst the old books of Dumas and Levi was a small, clean book, shoved away for forgetting.

The Legends of King Arthur.

It is quite amazing how much damage a single book can inflict upon a person.

He devoured the book, tore every chapter apart in a ravenous hunger for more words, more stories, more travels. He chased Arthur and Guinevere around the Earth and the sun to be able to read more. The words flowed out in a stream that no other book had caused before.

And so the love story began: of the boy and poetry and stories as the snow piled outside the windows.

He wanted more than Arthur and knights after some time, more lilting and stories in English that some so much more clunky and chaotic compared to his native tongues. So his parents, wanting to play into their son's sudden interest in English literature, decided to buy him a little booklet of poems on nature that wouldn't be too hard for a ten year old with Arthurian levels of English to be able to understand.

This was a devastating mistake,

He read and re-read and then read them again until they were ingrained into his blood, recited them in the dark, whispered into the duvet as the words rolled off his tongue. Soon the books beside his bed stacked up, full of Dahl, Shelley, Byron, Miller, Blake, the other Shelley, even Shakespeare wandered amongst the cracked spines and bulging paperbacks that the boy devoted upon, stuffing prose and stanzas and iambic pentameter into his mind until at long last, he glut himself, chosen under a banquet of words.

It charged his mind, electrified his words, glittered in the dark brown of his eyes as he talked to his parents, to anyone really, about anything, but most of all about the beauty of the words he had fallen in love with.

He excelled at school, though somewhat lacking in the common sense department at times, his essays a beautiful flow of curled words, chatting away to his teachers about his love. Sometimes, they'd ask him, maybe smiling a little, wouldn't he like to read the French translations? Or Italian, his mother tongue? (in the race to teach him their own language, his father had triumphed.) But he shook his head, said he wanted to learn in the original language, wanted to read the stories as they were written all those years ago.

One day, a teacher whose he was telling this to asked if he had considered studying English literature at university if he was this interested in it, and if so, would he like to go see Mr Evans?

The boy had felt his world rotate slightly on an axis. His future, bright and beautiful and clear, lay before him, and he was headed to Mr Evans' office faster than he could blink.

Mr Evans was American, taught English and had dark red hair and, peering out of the titchy desk shoved in the corner of modern foreign language department, gave off a very squirrely vibe, or that of some small furry creature that burrows its way into some dark hole to sleep there for the winter.

As it turned out, he was the life saver the boy needed. Through him, he found a way to study what he loved. Evans told him (and later re-iterated it when he met with his parents) he had a gift for this sort of thing and should seriously consider taking it for a degree course at university, in fact, he should apply for a place at Evan's old university in New York, where a degree from there was the best one around.

The SATs? Oh, don't worry about that. I'll work on it with you myself. You're very capable of doing it, you know. I'll need to arrange some - er - monetary matters with your parents, but I know you can pull through this. I believe in you.

And he did. Surprisingly. It was one of the most difficult times of his life, more than anything he'd ever had to do before, and not something he wanted to revisit any time soon - but he had done it. He had gotten through the tests and the essays and the rooms ringing in silence as he stared down at a paper in terrified silence at the questions he could barely understand. He fished a glimpse at the university - taken round on a tour by a boy with dirty blond hair after weeks of pleading with his parents to let him go and have a look, heart soaring at the teaching facilities, the dorms, the students who - well, the ones who weren't already brain-dead - seemed so happy to be there, to enjoy university life.

He packed up, at eighteen, a suitcase crammed with the books that had littered his bedroom for the past seven years, in an amount that his mother had said was sensible for his years at university, and the other things he knew he would need crammed down the side (some of which his mother later took out and replaced with things he would actually need), and, waving goodbye at the airport gates, got on his flight to the states, and the future that awaited him.

And he was there now, sitting on a chair in his teacher's office, surrounded by books he had been studying for the past year and a half, the books that he had used to help him survive freshman year.

Mordo ran through his history in his head, remembered stacks of old books, of the snowy day that had started this all off, of Evans, voice stuttering as he pushed more chapters, more stanzas, more phrases into his head, of all the books he had loved, of the fire that had been lit within him that had burnt to keep him going. He told himself this all over again as he listened to his teacher talk far away in the distance. Of King Arthur and the way he had entered a love-struck trance.

Only there was no King Arthur now. Only Blake and Hemmingway.

And Mordo, if we're going to be perfectly honest here, was quite extraordinarily fucked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I wrote this all out on paper and it took up five pages in my notebook but when I typed it all up it wasn't that much at all. Maybe my writing is just really big lol.  
> I'm going to try and get the next chapter up as soon as I can. I promise there's going to be more dialogue next time, and it's going to get funnier (hopefully :D )  
> Thanks to everyone who's left kudos on this fic and on my other fics! You're great!  
> I have a tumblr! Come and check me out at turn-and-face-the-paige


	3. Lamb

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Now he had to deal with this. He had to pay off his phone bills, somehow get enough cash to pay off Christine for the food from last week, finish off two essays, and get started on reading three books that he had to know by next Wednesday. And now he somehow had to get around to figuring how he was going to pass school.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It should be noted that if any of this story seems unrealistic, that's because it is.

Mordo felt the chair, solid and cold through the wool of his sweater, pressing up against him, holding him upright even as everything warped around him.

He cleared his throat and said, as calmly as he could in this situation, which, strangely, was very calmly, 'I'm very sorry, but could you say that again please?'

Mrs Tziona sighed. She had her hands resting on a copy of Wuthering Heights and a look of worry and grief resting on her face. She'd had to put up with Mordo's constant ramblings and suggestions in class, and now she was stuck here during her lunch break having to have a little chat to him.

She said kindly, 'Karl, I'm very sorry, but I'm afraid that you don't have enough credits for this academic year.'

Ah. So she had said that. Mordo had been hoping she'd somehow said something else, but even he knew that was just a wild hope.

Crumbs.

Now he had to deal with this. He had to pay off his phone bills, somehow get enough cash to pay off Christine for the food from last week, finish off two essays, and get started on reading three books that he had to know by next Wednesday. And now he somehow had to get around to figuring how he was going to pass school.

Double crumbs.

This was just fantastic.

Mordo felt his face stretch into something he hoped looked like a smile, but judging by the sudden look of slight horror on Miss Tziona's face, it probably looked more like a grimace.

'I see,' he managed to get out, 'Thank you, Miss Tziona.'

She sighed again. 'Karl, please don't look so worried. It's nothing serious. You'll just need to get some more credits, and you may take a bit longer to graduate. It's not the end of the world.'

It's not the end of the world, Mordo thought as he left the English department and began to make the journey back to his digs, Of course it's not the end of the flipping world. 

But it might as fucking well be.

***

As he came in through the door, a violent smell of meat and garlic hit him. It was so strong it appeared to be physically floating in a cloud above the kitchen doorway. So unless they'd somehow materialised a small Italian somehow, it meant Christine was cooking something tonight. From the smell, and the lack of angry screams, it was probably spaghetti bolognese. Spaghetti bolognese was one of the few meals that could be made in the house without causing an outraged reaction from the other occupants. It was one of the even fewer meals that could actually be consumed by humans.

Spaghetti sounded good right now.

Mordo dumped his backpack in the hallway and shuffled into the living room, where he could glimpse Christine and Wong standing by the stove, ladling a mountain and a half of pasta into three bowls. He whistled.

Wong yelled, his voice muffled, 'Hey, Mordo!'

Mordo said, 'Are you eating the pasta before it's in the bowl?'

Wong yelled back, his voice slightly less muffled, 'That's none of your business, Mordo.'

Christine sighed and came out into the living room with a bowl of pasta in each hand and handed one to Mordo as he stood in the living room. It was loaded with parmesan cheese, melted over the bolognese, just as he liked it. 

'I see the kitchen's in one piece.' Mordo said as he took the pasta and sat down at the sofa.

'That's because Hamir isn't in it.' Christine began to wind the spaghetti round her fork. 'He's out at a party somewhere and he's probably coming back tomorrow evening.'

'So the kitchen's intact until then, yeah?'

'Yeah.' her voice was muffled as she shoved a forkful of pasta into her mouth.

Wong came in then, his bowl steaming slightly, and slumped down on the sofa next to him. He reached past to the tv remote that was lying on the arm of the chair and flicked it into life. The screen was slightly cracked in one corner from the night Hamir accidentally stepped on it. Although, knowing Hamir, chances are, anything was probable.

He flicked it to the comedy channel and they settled down to eat pasta and laugh.

Or at least, Christine and Wong did. Mordo ate the pasta and watched the show, listening to the disjointed laughter coming from the background of some sitcom that had been running past its due date and felt as though he was somehow separated from the other two, sitting in some other place where they couldn't reach him. It was just the credits. It weighed down on him, settled heavy and disgusting in his stomach and refused to move, and he couldn't focus on anything but that. The phrase, 'More time to graduate' morphed through his mind, somehow turning into a sinister echo in his mind as he thought them over and over again. He couldn't bear the thought of having to stay longer, of having to re-do exams, and watch all the hard work he'd done, all the effort he'd put in through the last year, collapse as he had to take another year.

Or maybe he was just overthinking it a little...

Regardless of whether he really was overthinking this, it sucked. It really just sucked. There was no other word for it. He felt sick having to think about it, and having to think about what he was going to do to try and solve it.

Thankfully, Christine brought him out of it before he could go any further.

'Yo,' she said with her mouth full, 'You in tonight?'

‘Nah,’ Mordo said, staring at the screen but not seeing anything, ‘I’ve got a shift tonight, so I’m probably going to be back around nine-ish.’

‘No, wait, hang on.’ Wong interrupted, slurping up some leftover spaghetti into his mouth. ‘Someone was saying there’s going to be delays on the lines this week, remember? So you’re probably going to have to change to one of the other lines at some point.’

‘So that’s at least half an hour,’ Mordo finished. ‘So that’s about …. ten?’

‘Ten thirty.’ Wong said.

‘Eleven?’ Christine chimed in hopefully.

Mordo groaned and banged his head down on the sofa arm. This day was only getting better.

He felt Christine pat his shoulder kindly. 

‘Cheer up,’ she said gently, ‘We could leave out some snacks for you, if you wanted.’

Mordo groaned.

‘I’ll take that as yes then.’ Wong said cheerfully. ‘I’ll leave out some hot chocolate for you and you can heat it up if it’s cold when you get back.’

‘That’s not very inspirational, Wong.’ Mordo said to the sofa arm.

‘You’re an English major, Mordo,’ Wong said, standing up to head into the kitchen. ‘All you need for inspiration is some old geezer who can write a few lines that rhyme.'

‘Fuck you too, Wong.’

***

So he headed out, uniformed up, and hopped on the train to work. Sure enough, there was a work issue on the line. Sure enough, he had to switch to another line to get to work. And sure enough, he turned up a few minutes late, slipping through the back door and clocking in before his manager got his eyes on him.

Working behind the counter in a grocery store wasn't exactly exciting. But it took away the thoughts of the credits since it gave him something to work on. It was also helped by the fact that at least half the damn city seemed to strut on in and get something there, and the constant stream of customers managed to get his mind off credits. It also filled him with a slightly demented rage, which made him bitter and snappy at just about anyone and anything that came near him. 

This would turn out to be extraordinarily useful later on.

And finally - finally - the shift was over, and he could sod on home. His rucksack was lying on the floor near the door, and once he put his coat and bobble hat on, he slung it over his shoulders and began to slouch off to the train station. He dug into his pockets and pulled his gloves out, snuggling inside his jacket with a little contended sigh. 

It should have ended with that. It should have ended with Mordo going home, finding everyone asleep in bed, getting into his, surrounded by book posters and the large collection of postcards printed with old Monet paintings to cover up with gigantic dick that had been drawn on the wall by the previous occupants, and maybe cry a little. It should have ended, miserable but sure, just like that.

But it didn't. It was just the beginning.

Deep within the abyss of his rucksack, his phone started to ring. 

Mordo dug it out and spotted Christine's name flickering across the screen.

He answered with a, 'Uh, yeah?'

'Can you get some lamb?'

Mordo stopped. 'You want what?'

'Lamb. Can you get some?'

'Christine, what the hell do you want lamb for? We're not having some flipping English roast are we?'

Christine said, 'Wong's making hot pot on Sunday and he wants to put lamb in it.'

Mordo said, 'Lord give me strength.'

Christine said, 'Likewise.'

Mordo groaned. 'I've just had a shift, can't you get some tomorrow?'

'Yeah, but you're already out, and the nearest store is, like, a block away from you. Wong said he'll pay you back when you get back.'

Mordo gritted his teeth. Part of him really just wanted to go home, crawl into bed, preferably cry for about an hour and a half instead of doing something that would be useful and try and solve his problems, and then feel guilty and eat half a jar of Nutella. Another part of him wanted to turn around, get the most expensive cut of lamb he could buy and take it home, just so he could see the look on Wong's face when he had to pay him back.

That would probably cheer him a little bit more than eating Nutella and crying.

He said, 'Fine. I'll do it. But if I get back and you two are up to something, there'll be trouble.'

He ended the call before Christine could reply.

An hour later and he was heading towards the station, a plastic carrier bag of lamb swinging from mittened hands, and a small curl of satisfaction resting in his stomach, knowing he'd be getting paid for his troubles before long. He sloped along the abandoned park, reaching out and running his hands across the railings, listening to the small, distant thuds of his fingers hitting the metal, the sound muffled by his gloves. The street lamps lit the whole area with a soft orange glow, electric sunflowers growing from a metal stem, planted in a dark, cold earth; and like the phantom he was, William Blake's words curled in his mind, a beam of sun lighting his mind as he travelled through the darkness.

Ah! Sun-flower! Weary of time, who countest the steps of the sun -

Somewhere behind him, Mordo heard a soft crackle of something snapping into the night. But Blake was calling him, and who was he to ignore the callings of Blake?

\- Seeking after that sweet golden clime where the travellers journey is done -

And then it came again. Louder. A violent twisting of electrons and molecules, of something long and hard dragging across metal. Mordo nearly jumped out of his skin, and any thoughts of Blake evaporated immediately as he twisted behind him to see what the hell that was.

It was so dim at first, the glow of the streetlights mixing in with the darkness that clouded the streets, that Mordo couldn't spot them out at first, and couldn't understand exactly what it was he was looking at.

The light of one of the street lamps appeared to be floating along the path in the park, hovering in mid air, brimming and churning with a bright, burning energy. It had to be at least as big as Mordo's chest, and although it was about five feet away from him, and half muffled by trees and foliage, Mordo could hear the crackle of it as it burnt in the air from where he was as clearly as if it was right beside him.

As he stared, the ball flared, and suddenly something square and circular, decorated with sigils and symbols burst through, shattering light and sparks across the path, and from it, emerging like some monster emerging from the depth of some crack beneath the earth, a figure stepped out, darkly silhouetted against the light, stepping out from the ball, touching the ground, moving away -

And then another was emerging - and another, and another, and another, and more and more, until at least eleven people had crawled out of this thing, hanging around it, waiting for something or someone. And then, a final figure, heavily cloaked and shrouded, even against the bright light of the ball, rose out with a fluid, liquid grace, touching down delicately on the pavement. The person turned around, raised two fingers and began to swirl them around in a circle in the air, and before him, the ball closed and vanished away, leaving only blurry colours dancing in the back of Mordo's eyes as he stared.

The lamb in his hand had began to grow slightly damp with condensation, the plastic digging into his hand, but none of that mattered right now. Not whilst this was going on.

Not until Mordo could get an explanation on what the hell was going on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not going to lie, this was probably the hardest chapter so write so far, since I had no idea where I wanted to go with this, so I haven't updated this story for ages. Sorry for everyone who's been waiting for an update!   
> Thanks to everyone who's been leaving kudos and comments on this particular series. It's the first long fic that I've tried to write, so I have no idea how it's going to go, but hopefully it will be good :D  
> Stephen is going to turn up in a couple of chapters time, but for the most part it's just going to be Mordo getting into the Villain Lifestyle.  
> I have a tumblr! Come and check me out at turn-and-face-the-paige!


	4. Fearful

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It was all rather exciting, Mordo thought as he watched them approach the pavilion, albeit in a really, really weird way.

Mordo quickly decided that if he was going to stalk a bunch of cloaked people in the middle of the night, the best plan of action was to hide himself, and keep down and out of sight.

Which was why, about twenty minutes later, he was crawling along his belly, hidden under a bush, mud slicking up his jumper and the front of his jeans, cold and disgusting.

The group had huddled together for a couple of minutes, clearly going over something, before heading off down towards the lake, and the small pavilion that stretched out across it, and Mordo followed them along, crawling along like some weird snake, trying to keep his breathing down.

It was all rather exiting, Mordo thought as he watched them approach the pavilion, albeit in a really, really weird way. Exciting in the way that watching someone start to put a metal fork into a toaster is exciting. Which it kind of is, provided it’s someone you’re not very fond of.

And at this particular moment, Mordo was very fond of himself, and didn’t really fancy getting shanked in the middle of the night in a park under a bush by somebody wearing a cloak.

He kept low to the ground, and very slowly, very carefully reached out with a gloved hand to lift the scrubby leaves out of his view.

The group had arranged themselves in a circle around the pavilion, each person holding the hands of the people next to them, heads thrown back as someone stood in the middle, fiddling with something on the ground. Mordo squinted, trying to see properly, but the pavilion was slightly clouded in the darkness, and the slanted moonlight barely covered the ground in front of him, let alone the pavilion.

The person in the middle stood up, and raised his hands to the sky.

All around the circle, each person lifted their own arms up, one by one, until the circle stood united, raising their fists to the sky. They started to chant, low and soft, the words foreign and distant to Mordo’s ears.

Mordo wondered what they were doing, or what they were. He’d heard stories about black magic rituals held in the dead of night, a group chanting over a dead cat or something, about witches running around naked on the top of hilltops and trapping the moon in puddles. He’d also heard about those Wiccans, who liked to light sticks and hang around in circles and chant stuff, and wave crystals around, but he’d never gotten to actually meet one, and the only person he knew who used crystals was his cousin, and she liked to keep them on the shelf in her room.

So probably not Wiccans then.

So maybe black magic? Or maybe those Satanists who sacrificed babies or something. Mordo had heard about that from an uncle, and from books he’d read - ones he wasn’t’ supposed to read - and how they drank babies blood. Or the Bacchae, who whipped themselves into a frenzy as they roamed the hills, worshipping Bacchus in his wine-soaked glory - of the story of THAT GREEK GUY FROM CLASS CIV, who had been caught watching by his mother and aunts, who were so out of it, so psyched up, they thought their own flesh and blood to be a boar, and ripped his head off, tore his arms out his sockets, yanked his body to pieces.

Mordo really, really hoped these people weren’t either of those.

He wondered if Christine was wondering where he was. It had been at least an hour by now since she had phoned him. Should the worst come to worst, and he got caught by these weirdos and didn’t make it out alive, would Christine come looking for him if he never came home?

As he thought that through, he began to panic a little. Maybe this hadn’t been a good idea. He should go now - leave as quickly as he could before they spotted him. He began to drag himself back, away from the pavilion, getting ready to leg it as fast as he could, away from them -

When light began to sputter from the centre of the circle.

Mordo stopped where he was, his heart stopping with him.

Sparks were beginning to dance in the circle, springing up from the wooden floor, orange and gold and bright white, shooting out into the air.

The chanting increased, getting louder and louder, and as it grew, the sparks grew with it, reaching higher and higher into the air, until a great, flaming ball had materialised in the middle of the pavilion - writhing in mid air, pulsing with some unknown heat and power.

Mordo just stared. It was the only thing he could do.

The curiosity had vanished and had been quickly replaced by sheer terror at what was unfolding before his eyes - something that seemed impossible. He was frozen to the spot, too scared to move, too scared to even _think_ of trying to run away now. What could it be? What could they be trying to do?

Even from where he was, Mordo could hear the spit of the sparks as they flowed from the ball.

This wasn't a magic trick. It couldn't be. This had to be real. 

The ball grew higher and higher into the centre of the pavilion, and as he watched, it began to shudder and squirm, as though something was stuck inside or trying to push through into the outside. Something began to swirl in the middle, a bright white, almost painful light, stretching out across the wooden slots of the pavilion's floor, stretching out across the columns that supported the roof, across the faces of the people who chanted, and as Mordo watched, the light spread into the lake, burning, burning, bur-

Mordo stopped. He blinked. 

He squinted.

He blinked again.

He crawled a little forward, pressed down and strained as hard as he could, staring into the ball of light.

His mouth dropped.

The light was now bright enough that he could see the faces of the people standing in the circle. 

And one of those people was Laura Bates. 

Laura Bates, who sat next to him in first year philosophy.

Laura Bates, who had sat next to him for lunch for the first term when they ate at the small tree in the outside courtyard.

Laura Bates, who had asked him for help for a test on Byron that was coming up after the Christmas holidays.

Laura Bates .... who had joined a cult?

There was no doubt that it wasn't Laura; Mordo could spot her blonde ponytail a mile away in mist. But what the fuck was Laura  _doing?_

Mordo hadn't really talked to her for a couple of weeks, but Laura wasn't the kind of person who gave off a I'm-secretly-part-of-a-cult vibe. 

Mordo looked harder.

And to his shock, he spotted three more familiar faces: Zara Phythian, Alaa Oumouzoune and Scott Adkins. All people he had known in his first year, and all people who he had never, ever expected to join a cult.

He shifted a little, lifting the pressure off his leg, when he felt the hard outline of his phone, slipped casually into his jacket pocket after he had finished talking to Christine.

An idea, quicksilver fast, was born in his mind.

If he wasn't going to get a reasonable explanation tonight, he would at least force them to give him one tomorrow.

Carefully, as quietly as he could, trying not to shift or move the branches, he pulled his phone out, put a glove in his mouth, swiped upwards tapped cold fingers onto the video icon. 

The light given off was strong enough that the video could make it out, and could make out the faces of those in the circle. He kept his shaking hand steady and let the camera focus in on it. Maybe if he couldn't get out alive, they could find this later on.

The ball grew bigger, bigger still, and it illuminated the faces of everyone else in the circle, capturing them onto the film.

It would have been brilliant if the person in the middle could kneel or shift around, but he couldn't have everything, could he?

But then there was a smack - the sound of something hard and solid warping in the air -

And then the light had gone.

For a moment, Mordo couldn't see anything but a huge indigo smudge that hovered across the pavilion, burning his eyes every time he blinked. The camera feed had darkened too - and now no one could be made out.

Well shit.

Mordo gritted his teeth. He'd gotten all that he could. Now he had to lie low, wait till they had all left, and skedaddle back home.

He reached up to the phone, ready to turn off the recording, when across the pavilion, somebody spoke, crisp and clear:

'God dammit.'

Mordo felt his blood turn to ice.

There was a muffled voice, asking something, and then the first person was speaking again.

'No. There's no reason for it. We'll have to try again another night.'

Mumble mumble mumble.

'We did everything we could. We just got the wrong timing. When he's ready, he'll come.'

Mordo knew that voice. Anybody in his university would know that voice. 

It was the voice of professor Kaecilius -

\- who taught Laura Bates Latin in the first year

\- who had helped Alaa with some Danish text just two months ago

\- who was currently tutoring Zara and Scott for some essay they were doing 

\-  who was currently standing in the middle of a pavilion in the night, dressed in robes, and had just summoned a big ball of light out of nowhere.

And Mordo had it all on camera.

The group had huddled together, muffled voices hushed in talk, before they moved, as one, out, down the path that headed towards the east exit of the park, and vanished into the night.

Mordo stayed where he was, his heart beat echoing in his ears, his hands shaking as he held his phone.

A silence, thick as butter, settled across the park. He strained to hear if anything else was coming. 

Nothing.

Mordo lurched to his knees, scrambling for his phone. He turned the video off, pulled his glove on and shoved the phone down it, holding it tight in his hand. The lamb, that had been abandoned about a foot away from the bush, was snatched up and cradled to his chest.

He fled from the park, and ran all the way home, not stopping once, not even when he began to wheeze and cough, or when he dashed across the green light and was yelled at by two drivers.

Mordo ran for his life.

***

When he stumbled across the threshold of the door, he had to stop for a minute, simply to get his lungs back to working again. 

He slumped down against the door, blood thudding in his ears, wheezing for breath, simultaneously kicking off his trainers. He cradled his glove to his chest, feeling the reassuring hardness of his phone against his palm. 

The lamb was dumped on the top of the side table, for Wong to deal with, before he was scurrying up the stairs to his room, closing the door behind him and then - just for good measures - grabbing his chair and jamming it up against the door handle.

There. Catch some weird cult members trying to get into  _his_ bedroom.

And now, to the important part.

His laptop was hidden under his pillow, where he always kept it, and once he clicked onto his photos, sure enough, the video was there. 

So now what? What was he going to do with this?

Go up to Laura and Scott and demand they tell him what was going on? Or go up to Alaa or Zara and ask what that ball of energy was?

Or storm into Kaecilius' office and force him to tell him why he had made a ball of light appear in a park, and why the hell he had four students helping him out.

That sounded like a brilliant plan. Just march on up into the Classics office and try and ask the most respected and liked teacher why he was messing around in the park the night before and shove his phone under his nose as proof. That would go brilliantly well.

He slumped down onto his bed.

What the hell was he going to do? 

_What the hell was he going to do_?? What the hell did he  _have_ to do? Mordo didn't have a part in any of this, he'd just wandered across it. He could delete the video, put the laptop away and go to sleep right now. 

He'd spent almost three hours in the mud only to delete the only evidence he had of what had occurred, and get no answers from it.

Mordo supposed it couldn't be helped. He sighed miserably.

It wasn't like he could black mail Kaecilius or anything.

...

...

.... couldn't he?

Mordo sat up a little straighter.

Ideas were coming fast and rapid in his head. He had the video evidence for whatever the hell this thing was, could easily crop the photos to show the people in it, and could get hold of the audio of Kaecilius talking, and bring it right into Kaecilius' office, and demand him to -

To what? It wasn't like Kaecilius owed him anything. Kaecilius wasn't even his teacher.

But he was someone else's. And if he was someone else's teacher, it meant he had to review all their stuff, and grade them and give them the appropriate scores. 

_And it meant he could give credits to people._

Little pictures of his English literature degree flashed in Mordo's eyes.

This was perfect. 

By the time Mordo had finished, it was three am. He had a neat little pile of zoomed in pictures of the people in the circle, and an audio file ready to play to Kaecilius. When he had sprinted downstairs at one am to grab some coffee, he had brought the laptop with him, and spotted a small flash drive, left forgotten underneath one of the sofa cushions. 

He had grabbed it and run back upstairs, and immediately loaded the pictures, audio and video files onto it. It was better to have a backup just in case Kaecilius tried to do something funny. 

Closing the laptop, Mordo felt as though a weight had been lifted from him. Now, he at least had one way to get hold of some credits, even if it was done semi-illegally.

He reached down the side of his mattress, shoving the flash drive down there as far as he could. He'd dig it out tomorrow morning and tie it round some string or a chain he could borrow from Christine and wear it around his neck, hidden beneath his clothes.

His pyjamas were scrunched at the bottom of his bed, wrapped around an old copy of some Byron poems. He yanked them off, and switched out the light, settling down into bed.

He could have a lie in. He'd earned it as far as he was concerned. He was going to want a good night's sleep before he went after Kaecilius tomorrow. He pulled the duvet over his head and closed his eyes.

Far, far away in the distance, he could hear the faint sound of a siren, wailing on and on into the night.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Back again with another chapter! 
> 
> If you're wondering when Stephen is coming in, don't worry, he's coming along - as soon as Mordo's gotten his new costume ;)
> 
> Thanks to everyone who's left me kudos and comments on this work and on previous! You guys are great!


	5. Hand or Eye?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 'I figured you'd say that.' the words were somehow formed and spoken, even though it felt as though they came from another person far away. He watched Kaecilius tilt his head slightly in confusion. 'So I came up with a backup plan.'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back! I'm sorry it's short, I'll make up for it next time! Hope you enjoy it in the meanwhile!

The photographs were neatly tied together, sealed away into an envelope, in his pocket. The audio file had been left at home, stuffed in a sock, within a sock, and in turn, shoved into the back of his suit case which he slid into the gaps between his bed and the wardrobe. The flash drive was swathed in a little drawstring bag that usually housed his glasses cleaner, slipped into the cuff of his sleeve, the cold outline pressed reassuringly against his wrist.

He had everything he needed. 

Or, at least, he hoped he did. Mordo didn't have the best knowledge on blackmail, fictional or realistic. 

As he lurked in the corridor outside the Classics department, hiding in the dusty depths beneath the staircase, stuffed to the brim with damning evidence, Mordo felt a thin layer of anxiety begin to rise in his stomach. 

How exactly does one go about forcing someone to do something one wants them to do? In the good old days, all you had to do was whip a sword out and swing it around a little bit, and then you'd get anything you'd want and even a little extra if you were lucky. If you wanted to go back ever further, all you really had to do was be the first caveman who had the sharpest, biggest rock that they could chuck at a smaller, weaker caveman. That or just be very, very fast and very, very clever.

Unfortunately, Mordo was not particularly strong or fast. Even if there was a sword nearby that he could swing around, he doubted he'd do much damage. Kaecilius would just laugh at him. 

Mordo wasn't even that smart. 

Well - no. Not that. Not  _not smart,_ just - well.

Paranoid.

That happened a lot. He'd think he'd have the upper hand, think he'd be smart and clever, and be able to stand independently. But if someone squared him up, jeered at him, shouted or taunted anything, the tears would prick hotly at his eyes, and he'd stammer and shake and tremble, and he'd have lost before he'd even start.

And now he was trying to blackmail a teacher for credits. 

How was this going to work out?

Well, Mordo thought, swallowing down the uncomfortable anxiety and clutching tighter at the flash drive in his sleeve, It was now or never. Better to go all out than start having a cry.

The sound of footsteps began to echo from far above him, the wood creaking under the weight of someone, and Mordo knew that it was time.

Better to go all out, he told himself, Go all out and scare the pants off him. Intimidate him with all the knowledge you have on him. Something like that. 

Yeah, Mordo thought as he began to scramble up from the back of the staircase, making a beeline towards the person that walked up above him, Something like that.

He popped up from the staircase, practically bouncing into Kaecilius, whose hand as resting on the doorknob.

'P-professor Kaecilius?' Mordo asked, trying to sound calm and rational, but only managed to sound like a mouse that had been kicked in the gonads. Even Mordo was shocked by that.

Kaecilius said, 'Yes, can I help you?'

Mordo said, 'Uh- I was wondering if I could talk to you for a minute?'

 

Kaecilius nodded, and said kindly, 'Of course, let's have a talk in here.'

Wow. That was easy.

Now, Mordo watched as Kaecilius opened the door and gestured for him to go through first, For the hard part.

Kaecilius' room was tiny, barely big enough to swing a cat, stuffed to the brim with what appeared to be junk at first glance - chunks of pottery and scraps of paper stuck to whatever piece of wall remained, and books stacked upon books, supported by even more books. It was only when you focused hard enough that you could make out the titles that were embossed onto the sides of the books, the figures running jerkily across the pottery, and the trailing script across the papers. An odyssey of books avast the tiny sea of the room.

Weeding his way through his papers, Kaecilius hopped behind the desk, settling down into his chair, and gesturing at the small brown chair that was perched before him with an outstretched hand and a kind smile.

'So,' he said once Mordo had sat down and slid his rucksack to the floor, 'How can I help you today, Mister, uh...'

He trailed off.

'Karl,' said Mordo. 'Karl Mordo.'

'Mister Mordo,' Kaecilius straightened up in his chair a little, 'I don't believe we've ever met before.'

'We haven't. But, uh, I've heard about you from some other students.'

Mordo knew that if he was going to be playing a dangerous game, he had best keep his cards close to his chest. Not send out the queen before the rook was played. Not throw all his counters on the cheque board. Not be an idiot and start blabbing anything that Kaecilius could use against him. 

Kaecilius hummed pleasantly. 'And what may I be able to help you with today, then, Karl?'

Mordo took a breath, feeling the anxiety flitter in his stomach. 'I was wondering if you could help me with something.'

'Of course,' Kaecilius spread his hands above the table. 'Provided it's within my area of expertise.'

Mordo said, 'I know it is.'

Kaecilius chuckled, a content smile settling on his cheeks. 

Mordo continued. 'I recently found out that I don't have enough credits to complete my course for this year, and I - um - I was wondering if there was something you could do to change that.'

Kaecilius frowned a little, but his smile remained. 'You want me to give you credits?'

Mordo nodded.

He sighed, shaking his head. 'Karl, I'm afraid that I can't just hand out credits whenever I feel like it. I need some solid work that proves that a student is deserving of them, and, quite frankly, it would be impossible for me to give them to you since you don't take classics, and I don't help run any activities in the school.'

Mordo swallowed, hard. The time had come.

'I figured you'd say that.' the words were somehow formed and spoken, even though it felt as though they came from another person far away. He watched Kaecilius tilt his head slightly in confusion. 'So I came up with a backup plan.'

Kaecilius' frown deepened slightly. With a thrill of fear, Mordo pulled the photographs from his pocket, slipping them out of the envelope and neatly  laying them down on the table, each facing Kaecilius.

'You give me my credits,' he pushed the photographs across the table, his eyes fixated on Kaecilius every second of the way, 'And I don't tell anyone else about this.'

Kaecilius looked at the photographs. He didn't so much as move an inch. His facial expression remained fixed, calm and still smiling a little, but Mordo could feel the tension in the room rocketing with every second that Kaecilius sat silent. For a moment, he wondered, for a tiny, fleeting moment, if it had all been a mix-up, and Kaecilius was never in the park that night, that it wasn't him in those photographs. 

He leaned back from the photographs, gently reaching up to his glasses, gently putting them down on the table, knotting his hands together and propping them up under his chin. He met Mordo's eyes, and said, voice softer than a tiger's fur, said, 'I see.'

Mordo froze. That did not sound good. Normally, people reacted to blackmail with horror or anger or rage - not this. Not this soft smile, and those eyes glittering at him from deep within his face. 

Kaecilius said, 'Who will believe you? When you publish this? Who will believe a boy who's barely a man?'

Mordo lied, 'I have my ways. I know people.'

He really hoped Kaecilius didn't know that he only had about three friends at this university. Or that his parents would get into even deeper shit than he would if he persuaded them to get the photographs published somehow. But, given the way Kaecilius smirked, teeth pressing sharply against the softness of his bottom lip, his eyes narrowing into glittering slits, it had worked.

Or, at least, he had hoped it did.

Kaecilius murmured, 'There are ... many people who would pay a great deal to get their hands on something as incriminating as these photographs, Mister Mordo. To think, to believe, that someone like you just managed to stumble across this - to even capture photographs - and then come to  _me,_ to  _blackmail_ me, for something as pathetic as credits - forgive me, but you'll understand why I find that difficult to believe.'

Wow. This was not something he'd intended. What the hell was he supposed to say to that??

He managed to croak, 'I just want credits, Professor. I just want to be able to graduate. I don't really care how.'

For a moment, Kaecilius didn't speak. And then -

'So, you want to graduate, then?'

'Yes.' Mordo whispered.

 

'You'll do whatever it takes in order for you to do so?'

'Yes.'

'Even blackmail?'

'Y-yes.'

'And working for me?'

Mordo blinked. ' _Working_ for you?'

'Oh yes, Mister Mordo,' he sat back in his chair, inspecting his impeccable glasses. 'You hear me. I can't go around handing out credits willy nilly. I need solid proof that someone deserves them. You want to blackmail me into giving you some? Fine. I respect your cleverness. But if you think I'm going to sit back and toss you a credit whenever you need it without getting some sort of evidence that I'm getting something out the deal, then you are sorely mistaken. I want something,' he hummed, pretending to think, 'A little more, well, how shall we say;  _deserving.'_

The anxiety was back. It was racing in his stomach, pounding like a heartbeat, making it feel as hollow as air, as light as dough. This wasn't good. This wasn't good at all. He was supposed to be forcing Kaecilius to do what he wanted - not have Kaecilius get a grip on him.

'W-what would you mean by that?' Mordo asked, tripping over the words in his nervousness.

Kaecilius smiled at him, but there was a steel to his eye, a sneer hidden beneath the layers in his words, that told Mordo he was going to have his work cut out for him.

He said softly. 'You work for me - I'll decide what it is you do - but in exchange, I give you credits. And just to give you a little tip-' he reached out, pushed the photograph that had the ball of light, burning and twisting in the dark sky, 'It'll involve working with this.'

Mordo didn't say anything. Couldn't say anything.

'Does working with electricity scare you, Karl?' Kaecilius asked.

Well, that was nice and ominous.

Mordo said, 'No. Not really.'

'What are your measurements?'

'My  _measurements?'_

'Oh yes,' Kaecilius said with the air of someone who feigns innocence even though they all but have a sign strapped to their head saying 'GUILTY', 'We're going to need you measured up. The others all had to do so when they came to me for help. You'll need a uniform too.'

Mordo said, 'Oh.'

He said, 'I want to keep the photographs.'

Kaecilius practically purred at him through his canines, 'Be my guest.'

Mordo lunged for the pictures, hastily stuffing them into the envelope. As he did, he saw Kaecilius put a book down on the table - 

A book that hadn't been there a minute ago. A book in an area of the room where there were no bookcases. At a desk where Mordo would have heard the opening, the sliding, the rummaging, the squeak and the shutting of someone going through a drawer to find a book.

Kaecilius flashed him a sinister grin. 'Well then. We're going to have to get a few things written down, aren't we?'

Mordo noticed with vert dread that the cover of the notebook was emblazoned with a silver symbol, a circle entwined within a circle, a moon and a sun dancing around the edges, something sharp and beautiful and dangerous.

He picked up a pen, opened the book and scribbled something down before looking up expectantly at Mordo.

'Full name?' he asked.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I was thinking the other day how I hadn't touched this fic for absolutely ages, and it was only when I looked at my calendar that it had been two whole months, and that cannot do. I really hope you all enjoy this, and now that the blackmailing has been committed, the good stuff will begin!  
> Thanks to everyone who has left kudos and comments on this fic and all the other Doctor Strange fics before this. You're all angels :D


	6. In the Forests of the Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> That was probably the first bad decision of the night.
> 
> Well, that and him agreeing to meet with what appeared to be an eviller looking Severus Snape who had just hopped out a ball of light in the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! I'm so sorry that I haven't been able to update this story! I realised that I last added a chapter in October or November, and I've been trying to add on and write the next chapter, but things kept cropping up, and I always ended up avoiding it. 
> 
> PLUS Infinity War comes out in a week or sos time??? and i'm so excited???? Doctor Strange is going to be with the other avengers and i'm super excited for this. And I'm also really excited to see if Mordo's going to be involved or shown at any point, since we got shown that bit at the end of Dr Strange where he takes the magic from that sorcerer and i need to know more.

An hour later, Mordo was nipping across the bad, hoodie pulled up to avoid the rain, the envelope clenched between his hands, and a small slip of paper tucked away into his pocket. Kaecilius had taken down his details in the book (unsurprising), along with his height and weight (surprising) as well as which hand he preferred and whether or not he was capable of running long distances for a while without needing to stop or rest (actually quite worrying)

As he had sat there, watching Kaecilius' pen flash as he scribbled his details down, Mordo began to have the teensy tiny feeling that, somehow, this was going to be far more trouble than it was worth. To be fair, he  _was_ blackmailing a member of staff at a university about whether or not he was a cult leader or just some weirdo who liked to run around at night with a bunch of students in cloaks, so it shouldn't have surprised him that this was going to happen. 

God, when all those authors went on about selling their soul to the devil, they usually meant it literally or metaphorically. Mordo wasn't sure whether this was the metaphorical or the literal, and he really, really hoped that it was going to be neither. He just wanted a degree, not become an accomplice to some creepy teacher - was that too hard?

He'd managed to keep the photos on him, for the meanwhile. Sure, Kaecilius had told him he could keep them, but he seriously doubted he would stick by his words. He was getting blackmailed after all.

But he'd gotten out of it - he'd gotten his promised credits, along with a little curt offer from Kaecilius to give him some extra tuition (whatever that was supposed to mean), and he had the photographs.

And the note.

Kaecilius had handed it to him just before he left, tearing a page out of a lined notebook and folding it in half without even writing on it. 

'I want you to come to this address on Saturday,' he had said, eyes level with his own, 'You'll find the time and the date that I want you present as well. I want you to memorise all of what you see. And once you've done that, I want you to destroy it. Do I make myself clear.'

'Y-yes, sir.' Mordo had reached out with trembling fingers that he pretended weren't trembling at all, and picked it out of his grasp.

He'd gotten out of the chair, making his way to the doorway, skirting around a box of what looked like even more dusty books, with a couple of jars of what he hoped was some really shitty coffee, when he heard Kaecilius clear his throat. 

'Oh, and Mister Mordo, one last thing.'

He glanced behind. Kaecilius was leaning back, toying with his glasses. The light bouncing off them glinted like a knife in the soft cradle of his palm. He looked at Mordo, and for the first time, Mordo realised how cold and lifeless they seemed to be - merely two balls of flesh and nerve, unseeing and cruel.

'If I so much as think that you've told anyone anything of what occurred in here -' he brought the glasses to the table, resting his knuckles against the wood. 

There was a terrible crack, like the sound of a body connecting against concrete, and suddenly the desk was shattered, split in two as thought with some great double axe, a crevice of dark black emerging from the centre. 

Mordo felt the breath leave his body.

Above the crevice he had created, Kaecilius smiled, and those eyes grew crueler and crueler.

'And I'll make sure that you wish you had never been born, boy.'

Mordo opened his mouth, to say some witty retort, spit out a gasp of horror, but he found he could not - like something had physically taken hold of his throat, squeezing and squeezing until no words could come out, until eventually, his airways would collapse and be crushed, and for one horrific moment, Mordo had the wild thought that this squeezing was not his own doing.

Kaecilius' smile grew. He moved his hand off the desk, and almost as soon as it started, the squeezing stopped.

He slipped the glasses onto the bridge of his nose, before he picked up a small leaflet that decorated the edge of the floor.

He murmured, 'Good day, Mister Mordo.'

Mordo ripped open the door and ran out, bolting down the corridor as fast as he could.

 

 

 *****

 

He pushed open the door with his shoulder, stealthily ensuring that both envelope and flash-drive were kept on him as he fiddled with his key in the lock. Without hesitation, he headed straight for the staircase, to his room, where he could figure out some new place to stow away the pictures and flash drive, as well as get a good look at where Kaecilius wanted him for Saturday. Just his luck that it was also his shift that night. What would be worse, showing up late to a shift that he hated, or showing up late to the meeting he had with a man he was blackmailing and had threatened his life earlier on with a desk. 

 

 

That desk... 

How had Kaecilius done it?  _What_ had he done, aside from break a perfectly good desk.

Mordo had little to no knowledge of science (reading lots about Byron and not Lovelace tended to do that to you), but he knew enough. Like how you were supposed to put blankets over electrical fires, and that vinegar and bleach made mustard gas, and even that electrons were negative (even if he still didn't know what electrons were supposed to do in the scheme of things). And one thing he knew for certain was that people couldn't break desks with just a touch, no matter what the substance. 

It had all happened so quickly - just a crack and then bam! Broken desk! 

Although, he reminded himself, this was the same guy who had conjured what looked like a ball of electricity in the park, and had been able to somehow magically appear out of nowhere in the middle of the night. So maybe a broken desk was the least that he could do. 

He passed by Wong's room, the door open so that he could glimpse Wong bent over his desk, scribbling away in his notebooks, his computer open to an article about the failure of some government somewhere, and how that had screwed someone else's economy up. He rapped on the doorframe, and Wong had turned to face him. His hair looked ruffled, like he had run his hands through it multiple times, and his face looked tense, but it seemed to melt at the sight of Mordo.

'Hey, man.'

'Alright, Mordo?'

'Yeah,' he nudged the door open slightly, so that he was standing in Wong's room than in the hallway, 'It's been a busy morning.'

'Same here. I've been at this essay for most of the morning, and I'm still nowhere near done.'

Mordo hummed. 'Listen, are you and Christine planning anything this Saturday?'

Wong frowned, thinking. 'Not that I can remember off the top of my head. Why? Do you want to go out and see a film or something?'

'No. I've got, uh, something coming up.'

'Oh?'

'Yeah,' he said, scratching his nose and feeling the outline of the file as he did so, 'I dunno how long I'm going to be, but I'm probably going to be out for most of the evening.'

'Alright. What're you up to?'

Mordo lied through his teeth, 'Meeting up with some guys from school.'

'Coursework? Or some new poet who wants you to read some more terrible poetry?'

'Uh, yeah? I think so, they just asked me to come and meet up with them to go over some stuff.'

'Cool.' 

 

Mordo reached for the door handle. 'Yeah, so if Chris or Hamir want to know where I am, just tell them that, yeah?'

'Yeah. See you, man.'

'See you, good luck on the essay.'

And with that, he shut the door. 

He made his way to his room, shutting the door behind him, going to the bed, stopping, then took his chair from his desk and rammed it up against the door handle, just to be sure. 

Once he'd done that, he turned to the bed. A few moments rummaging about later, and the audio file was safe and sound, still in the place where he'd left it. 

Slipping the envelopes down the side of the suitcase, he packed it all back together and squeezed it back into the gap, where it stood, reassuringly solid and unmovable. 

The flash drive he could take care of later. It was probably better to keep this one on his person, or at least somewhere he knew nobody else could get into and grab it, like his inner pocket. 

And speaking of pockets.

Mordo sat down on the bed, hearing it creak reassuringly underneath him. Slowly, he reached into his pockets and pulled the paper from within out into the light and unfolded it.

It was blank. He turned it over. Blank on the other side. He lifted it up to the light. 

And under the banner of the sunlight, something began to crawl across the page, like an invisible wave, swirling into place amongst the lines, in a neat, angled hand.

It took a few seconds before the writing solidified and actually spelt something out, but Mordo could see it anyways, as clear as the sunlight that had brought it into existence. 

_Where you first saw us. 10:30. Do not bring anyone._

10:30. His shift finished around 9. And if Kaecilius wanted him to go where they first met, that had to be the park, and the repairs on the line were still going on - meaning he could arrive a couple minutes early and skulk for a while around the park, to see if there was anything there that could suggest - well. Anything.

Anything to help him understand what fresh hell was going on. 

Park, 10:30. Don't bring anyone. 

He could do that.

Mordo brought the paper down, and almost as soon as the paper was out of the sunlight, the writing vanished. 

Park, 10:30. Don't bring anyone. 

He ripped the paper in two. Then fours. Then eights. Then ripped each paper up until nothing remained but tiny scraps of lined paper.

Park, 10:30. Don't bring anyone.

He could do that.

 

*****

The confidence had lasted up until his shift started. 

The entire time, his mind had been elsewhere, even as customers plonked down packets of biscuits and instant ramen, and he totalled it all and took change and handed it back. It would have been impressive, if not for the fact that he was too busy freaking out inside.

What the hell was Kaecilius going to do with him? Or _to_ him? 

God, he wasn't going to beat him up in the park was he? That would be a sight; some old professor trying to beat up some student near midnight. Kaecilius couldn't possibly beat him up - he didn't look like he had the strength.

But then Mordo remembered the desk, and the cold, cruel eyes, and realised that Kaecilius wouldn't need physical strength. He could do it just with a look, or a gesture, and he would have Mordo wetting himself then and there. 

Or he could just get the rest of the - er - cult to beat him up. 

This was going to be fantastic.

For the first time in his life, Mordo willed the shift to go on, for the clock to freeze and never move forward, so that he could stay in his shitty uniform working at his shitty job forever and ever, and not have to go to a park and possibly bet beaten up by a Classics professor or his cult. He would have taken all the angry soccer moms and sulky, sullen teenagers, and the occasional drug addict who tried to sneak a few packets of cigarettes out without paying than anything that awaited him in that park. At least he knew what he could expect from an angry soccer mom who wanted to "talk" to the manager. 

He didn't have a clue about Kaecilius. 

But like it or not, this was his only way out. Or forward. Whatever it was, it was the only way to get credits, and graduate. If he could have the balls to blackmail someone, and film some cultists (or whatever it was they were), then he could sure as hell go and meet with said cultists. He could do this. He could.

Right?

9 o'clock came and went, and Mordo shrugged out of his uniform and sloped towards the train station, his fingers clenching and unclenching around his backpack straps. 

By the time had arrived at the park, the sky was the colour of pitch, with barely any stars at all, and nobody hanging around the outside of the park. Kudos to Kaecilius for picking the right place to meet up. At least no one would see him getting beaten up if there was no one around. He peeked his head round the iron wrought gate that lead to the park. Oh, and there was no one in the park either. 

Fantastic. 

He looked around the gates. No sign of Kaecilius.

Maybe he wanted him inside the park? After all, he had first met him at the pavilion, maybe he wanted him there.

Slowly, carefully, he headed in, his hands still clenched around his straps. There were no lights in the park, and the deeper he headed with in it, the darker it grew. Underneath his feet, the grass grew wet and squishy, and he could feel a tiny dampens begin to seep through his trainers and into his socks.

God, he hoped he wasn't going to get jumped.

The pavilion stood ahead of him, the ghostly white outlines of its structure seeming to hover above the wooden structure that jutted it out against the small lake, now barely visible in the dark. Nobody seemed to be there, either on it or lurking below where it stretched down into the water. He came to a stop, just before the pavilion, glancing around. 

Nobody there. No cultists or Kaeciilus.

He took one hand off the strap and pushed his glove back to look at his watch. It was only 10:32, and he knew for a fact that he had arrived at the park at 10:28. He would have noticed if someone had decided to hop out a ball of light and into a dark park pavilion, but for some reason, Kaecilius didn't exactly strike him as someone who would be late to a meeting with a black mailer. 

He brought his hand back to his strap and clenched it again. It felt good to have his hand around something solid and reassuring to hold onto right now, when he had no idea what was going on. 

There was a hissing sound from behind him. Suddenly, a dart of light flashed across the grass around him, his shadow looming darkly against the ground, causing him to turn.

It was the ball of light, like the one he'd seen before. The ball flickered, and then something square and decorated with sigils and symbols burst through, causing light and sparks to dance across the muddy grass. It grew, and then a figure, swathed in dark robes stood out from the light, gently touching down into the grass, the sparks swirling and roiling behind him, like an ocean of light.

The light slowly dissipated, swirling like water down a drain, but a hand emerged from the robes, and with a snap of fingers, a ball of light appeared, echoing around the back of his hand like a frisbee of moving light. The same symbols and sigils, now smaller, moved around the edges, winking at Mordo in the darkness.

Another hand emerged, and pushed back the hood of the robes, and with a dramatic flourish that Byron would be in awe of, Kaecilius shook his frosty locks free from the hood, the light casting his cheekbones and brow bone into mysterious shadows around his face. 

There was no bracelet around his wrist, no sign of anything that he could have on his being that could have possibly produced that light. It had appeared out of nowhere. 

 

But from the looks of it, he hadn't brought anyone else with him. So at least there was that in his favour. 

Kaecilius stared at him, cold eyes appearing even colder in the swirling light, his mouth a thin, mirthless line.

Mordo really didn't know what he was supposed to do at this point. After all, he was partly terrified, partly worried, and partly just full on weirded out. Who owned robes anyways?

So he said, his voice squeaky, 'So, um, have you got one for me?'

Kaecilius' eyes grew colder. He raked Mordo from top to bottom, and for a moment, as though he was looking at himself through Kaecilius' eyes, he saw himself; a boy who looked too young to be in college, with a duffel coat buttoned to his chin and a green scarf with green gloves and a fluffy green wool hat, with a cute little pom-pom at the top. 

He swallowed. That was probably the first bad decision of the night.

Well, that and him agreeing to meet with what appeared to be an eviller looking Severus Snape who had just hopped out a ball of light in the night. 

But before he could try and cover up his mistakes, Kaecilius started speaking, his voice low and soft.

'It's time you learnt what I expect from this agreement.'

Mordo gave a small nod. The light flared, making the hollows of Kaecilius' face appear as sharp as a blade in the dark. Mordo clenched onto the straps harder than he should have.

Kaecilius took a step closer, and another, until he was at least an arm's length from Mordo. From where he was, Mordo could see that one of the symbols that curled in the light was a letter of the Greek alphabet. But before he could enact on his limited knowledge of the Greek language, Kaecilius was talking again.

'I expect nothing short of utmost secrecy.'

He began to walk around Mordo, his eyes flickering up and down his form, sizing him like a chef viewed a hunk of meat as they decided how to cook it up. 

'I expect you to keep what I tell you to yourself. I expect you to tell nobody nothing of what I show you, what I tell you.'

He stopped. Mordo could hear a siren wailing in the distance, hear the wind ruffling through a tree, but he was too focused on the man before him, on the swirling light that glittered and shone like the sun on the back of his hand. 

He spoke, his voice barely above a whisper, 'What are you going to show me?'

For a moment Kaecilius did nothing. Just stood and watched.

And then his voice cracked into a smile. 

He took a step closer, another, another and another, even as Mordo jerked back in shock, and he lunged forward, his hand dancing in front of his face, and the sigil burned and blazed in his eyes, leaving aftershocks of electric purple and blue, the symbols swirling and twitching before him, as though dancing some hideous waltz. His hand shot out, grabbing Mordo's wrist, the nails digging in, cold and sharp, forcing him to stay still. He brought the light even closer, until the sparks dropped to his bare skin, gold against black, and he leaned in until Mordo could see the sparks dancing in those cold, lifeless eyes.

He whispered, his voice as smooth as a tidal wave, as gentle as a hand squeezing his throat, ' _Do you believe in magic, Mister Mordo?'_

Mordo couldn't say anything, couldn't blink, couldn't breathe. He was vaguely aware of the cold weight of Kaecilius' hand around his wrist growing painful, his eyes beginning to sting from the light, but he didn't care, couldn't care - he couldn't  _believe -_

**_Magic._ **

It couldn't be - it  _couldn't be -_

But it  _was._

That was all it could have been. 

What else could break a desk or create balls of light or make a man jump into a dark park in the middle of the night?

What else could it have been?

 

All those books, all those stories, all those dreams he had had, after cracking open another fairy tale after the other as he gluttoned himself on dreams and the imaginary - and the biggest part of it all, had been right there, under his nose, all this time.

Magic. 

Of course it had been.

 

Kaecilius must have seen something flicker across his face, some sort of recognition pass in his eyes, because he was pulling away, the light growing into something more bearable, until only livid colours danced across the back of his eyes as he blinked. He looked smug. 

Mordo gaped at him. 

Mordo whispered hoarsely, sounding like the child he felt, 'Are you going to teach me it?'

Kaecilius' eye twitched in annoyance. The smugness vanished and was replaced with a look of annoyance. He must have been expecting some sort of shock and horror, instead of some over-eager reaction. 

Well, screw him, Mordo thought excitedly, who cares?  _Magic is real._

He glared at Mordo, lip curling back, but he said, his voice like curdled milk, 'Yes, Mister Mordo. I am going to teach you magic.'

Mordo gasped, his eyes widening. 

Kaecilius scowled, his face looking like an angry bulldog. 

'But,' he snapped, 'There are exceptions to this.'

'Of course.' Mordo gasped, breathless with excitement - because magic! Magic was real! All those stories, all those dreams, all were real! Well, maybe not all of them, but real! Magic!  _Magic, magic, magic, magic!_

Kaecilius snarled, 'Do you always look like that?'

'Like what?' Mordo whispered through his ecstasy.

'Like a child.'

'I dunno.' Mordo was practically vibrating, too excited to care, too excited to notice that Kaecilius had finally dropped his smug wolfish act for the first time since he'd met him.

Kaecilius sighed, sounding like a piece of plastic that had been chucked into heavy machinery, but he moved towards Mordo.

'This is my deal with you, Mister Mordo. You want to work for me? That's excellent. I need as many hands as I can get. But working for me means that you are going to have to understand a few little details that you may not already be aware of.'

Mordo said, 'Absolutely.'

Kaecilius said, softly, 'I want you to understand, first and foremost, that I am not Kaecilius to you. I am not "professor". I am not "Mister Kaecilus.". I am Leader, to you and everyone you work with.'

Mordo said, 'Got it.'

'I am the Leader of the Zealots. That is what anyone who works under me is called. You are now a Zealot, Mister Mordo. When you meet the others, you will be called Zealot. You will call the others, Zealot. You will  _not,_ under  _any circumstance,_ reveal your real name, or the name of any other Zealot to any other Zealot, or to anyone that we encounter.'

Mordo thought this over. It had more plot holes than a sieve, or a Joss Whedon movie, but something told him that saying that wouldn't get him in Kaecilius' good books.

So he just said, 'Okay.'

Kaecilius said, his voice growing into the prideful rumble that it had been before, 'And as a Zealot, I expect you to know the basics of our magic.'

Mordo gasped.

Kaecilius said, 'You are now a Zealot, boy. A follower of a great sorcerer, a wielder of a magic you could barely wrap your tiny brain around. You are a speck in the great cosmic void. And as my follower, you will support me, you will aid me, you will guide me in my voyages and in my conquests. And in return, you will be given a place to remain beside me, a chance at greatness and glory and a chance to gain an understanding of things that you can barely understand.'

Mordo squeaked, 'And credits?'

Kaecilius, 'Oh, yes. Credits. I almost forgot about that.'

Mordo squeaked, 'And I learn magic??????'

Kaecilius said, 'How the hell did you do that?'

'Do what?'

'The thing with the question marks.'

'The what?'

'Uh,' he shook his head, 'Nothing. Forget about it. Yes, Zealot. You will learn magic.'

Mordo gasped.

'I will teach you as much as I can, and what I will teach you is enough to make most people crazy with greed and desire. So be grateful boy, that I am kind enough to teach you the tiniest part of the magics that surround us.'

Mordo gasped.

'You will require teaching over a longer period of time. Naturally, you and I will meet until I deem you fit to take an active part in my missions. But mark my words, Zealot, by the time I am done with you, you will have more power in one finger than most people can achieve in their lifetime.'

Mordo gasped.

Kaecilius said, 'Mordo, I swear to Christ, if you do that again, I'm going to throw you into that lake and let the leeches have their way with you.'

Mordo said, voice faint, 'There aren't any leeches in that lake.'

'I beg your pardon?'

'Nothing.' he said quickly. 'So uh, can I learn some magic now?'

Kaecilius glared at him. 'Yes, Zealot. I cannot expect to let you leave this magic without someway fulfilling what you want.'

Mordo began to gasp, remembered the leeches, and shut up. 

Kaecilius took his spare hand out from the depths of his robe. He raised it up to Mordo, his fingers looking more like a corpse's than a man's.

He said, 'Well, what are you waiting for?'

Mordo took his hand and kissed it.

'I meant take the ring, you fool!'

'Oh.'

Mordo looked at his fingers. Across the index and the ring finger was what looked like a ring - a strange, long chunk of gold, carved with a curving, waving pattern. He pulled the glove from his right hand and tucked it into the palm of his left glove, slid it from his fingers and immediately slipped it on.

Kaecilius snorted derisively. 'Eager, aren't we?'

 

'Yeah,' he raised his hand, admiring the way the ring fit against his fingers, sleek and bold against the back of his hand. 'So how do I use it?'

 

Kaecilius said, coldly, 'That is a Sling Ring, Zealot. It is the most valuable tool that you will ever carry. You must look after it with your life, for without it, you will be little more than a boy running besides men. That Sling Ring will allow you to travel anywhere you please, like how I was able to travel here.'

Mordo's jaw dropped. He whispered, 'Really?'

Kaecilius snapped, 'Yes. Now get over here, I need to teach you how to use it.'

Mordo scampered over, almost tripping over his trainers in his haste. He settled himself alongside Kaecilius, his hand raised, and turned to him eagerly.

'So what do I do?'

'Well, first I'd tell you to raise your hand, but since you've already done that step, I want you to focus on a place in your mind.'

Mordo closed his eyes.

'A place that isn't going to be populated right now. Imagine somewhere in this park.'

'Oh.'

'Take your time. Do not rush into this willy nilly. Picture the place. Picture it in your mind's eye as clearly as you may see anything else.'

Mordo imagined the park around him now, dark and cold and wet. The grass glittering with wetness, the cold mud that covered everything, the ruffle of the wind that blew around him, around the pair of them. Of the pitch night above him, above the park, devoid of stars.

He heard Kaecilius murmur, surprisingly gentle, 'Can you see it?'

Mordo whispered, 'Yes.'

'Project that image. Project it into the back of the ring, reach out to it, reach out to touch it. It's real, Zealot. It's real around us, and it's real in your mind.'

He tried, he saw the grass against the ring, saw his hand reaching out into the grass and mud and the trees and the pitch and the stars, saw it and knew it was right there, beneath his finger tips. 

'I can see it.' he breathed

'Then release your mind. The ring will guide you, the ring will push you forward. Trust in the ring. Let it open.'

'I understand.'

'Now lift your other hand.'

Mordo lifted it.

'Circle your hand. Your pulling away the threads of reality, Zealot. Let the ring guide you.'

Mordo began to circle. At first, there was nothing. Just his hand moving in mid-air, circling through the air.  

And then he could feel a heat, spreading across the back of his fingers, warm and tingling, across the back of his palm, down to the tips of his fingers, tingling and wet, like he was touching hot strips of silk. He flexed his fingers, and moved his hand, feeling the strips float in the air around him, swirling against the air. Something hot seemed to move from underneath his fingers, out from his body and into the air. He could feel something like a flush of wind against his face, and he opened his eyes.

Before him, spitting and hissing with light, burning gold and bright against the darkness of the park, was a circle, through which he could see the pavilion, the ghostly white jutting out against the dark, the pavilion which was only a foot away from him. It was a bit small, the light not as bright as Kaecilius' but it was  _there -_ it was  _real -_ it was magic and he was  _doing it._

 

He gasped, a smile spreading across his face, his eyes wide, and he was aware that the right glove had slipped out from his left, but he didn't care, not now, not right now, not when he was creating a gap in the darkness of reality, creating spitting light with the back of his hand; he was performing magic. 

 

The light spat and turned, and in his excitement, he turned to look at Kaecilius.

Kaecilius was watching the spitting circle with a weird look. It was like he was straining to see something in the distance, his head tilted back. 

'How strange.' he murmured, more to himself than to Mordo, 'How very, very strange.'

Mordo blinked. His hand faltered, and within seconds, the circle had collapsed and died.

He said, ignoring the fact that he had just dropped the circle, loudly, 'What's strange?

That seemed to snap him out of it, making him jerk his head back in Mordo's direction. The look dissipated within seconds.

'Nothing of interest,' he said surly. 'Well done, Zealot. Your performance with the Sling Ring was admirable.'

Admirable? That's all he had to say? What a miserable git.

'Now,' he stretched out his hand. 'Return it to me.'

'What?'

Kaecilius smirked, 'You didn't think I was giving you the Ring permanently, did you?'

Mordo didn't say anything.

'I'm afraid, Zealot, that you will not get your Sling Ring until you have become trained enough to join me and the other Zealots.'

'But I'll get one eventually, yeah?' Mordo asked quickly.

'Of course,' Kaecilius began to adjust his hood, pulling it over his head. 'You will receive your Ring when you are fitted for your uniform.'

Mordo gasped. 'I get a uniform?'

'Of course. All the Zealots do.'

Mordo couldn't believe his ears. Magic? A fancy ring? A posh costume? All in one night?

It was practically Christmas!

Kaecilius turned to him, the light slipping into the folds of the hood of his cloak. 'Now, Zealot, do you know what I'm going to tell you now?'

Mordo, who temporarily shoved visions of sorcerer uniforms and magic rings dancing in his mind, and tried to think about what Kaecilius had told him during their conversation. He said, trying to not make it a question, 'Don't tell anyone what we did?'

Kaecilius smiled his wolf's smile. 'Good boy. You're not going to tell anyone are you? Because, you know, Zealot, what'll happen to you if you do.'

Actually, Mordo thought, he didn't know what would happen. The most he'd threatened him with was with a desk and with some non-existent leeches. But his hand was getting cold, and his glove was probably muddy and wet, so he nodded solemnly.

Kaecilius stretched out his hand expectantly. Slowly, reaching for his hand, Mordo pulled the Ring off, not wanting to take it's weight from him, to take away this gateway to magic. He dropped it into Kaecilius' waiting palm. 

He smiled, and slipped his hand back into the depth of his robes.

'We'll be seeing each other soon, Zealot.' He promised.

'When?'

Kaecilius smiled, his eyes cold in the light. 'Don't worry, Zealot. You'll know when.'

And with his spare hand, he reached up, beginning to circle, until light spat and and churned from nowhere, ripping a hole into the air in front of them. Without even a backwards glance, or even pausing to remove the light that circled the back of his hand, he strode through it, and vanishing away, into the cold night.

Silence that followed. All that Mordo could hear was the sound of his own breathing, and the distant ruffle of traffic between the thick trees of the park. He glanced down. His glove was sticking, fingers first in the ground. 

He picked it up. It was cold and wet. 

But for some reason, he found he couldn't care, didn't want to care.

He'd made magic - he had the capability  _of_ magic - 

And he could do it again.

He reached down and plucked up the glove, and tucked it into his coat pocket. He raised his head. In the new darkness of the park, he could only make out the outlines of the edge of the pavilion, and the gaping blackness that billowed beneath it. He glanced at his watch. 

It was 11:10. 

It was time to go home.

He made his way along the dark path, to the dark entry of the park, and every step he took reminded him of what he'd done. 

Magic lay beneath his finger tips, beneath his very flesh and bone. Magic, that he could use with a ring. Magic, that he was going to use, in the future. 

Magic, that he'd never once considered to be possible.

And to think he'd spent all that time worried he was going to get jumped by a bunch of cultists and a Classics professor.

He made his way to the gate of the park, where the streetlights shone orange light across the empty pavements and road. He scampered off down it, his hands tucked into his jeans pockets. The train station was about three blocks from the park, and he was going to have to hurry if he wanted to avoid any of the clubbers of people who were heading home at this time of night on the trains.

Mordo made his way down the lonely streets, to the direction of the train station.

 

Lonely. 

 

But not abandoned. 

 

Abandoned implies that nobody else is present.

 

As Mordo made his way to the station, far above him on a rooftop ledge, somebody watched him go.

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry this was so long. I think I was trying to compensate for not adding a new chapter for like five months? 
> 
> Thank you so much to everyone who has left kudos and comments on Tyger as well as all of my other Doctor Strange fics! It all means so much and you're all so lovely for doing so. Thank you!! <3
> 
> also i wrote this instead of revising for a test that i have tomorrow afternoon lmfao pls pray for me

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not American, so I have no idea how the credit system works, so I'm going to have to go ask some friends for advise and it might take a little while to upload this fic.  
> I have a tumblr! Come and check me out at turn-and-face-the-paige


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